Exploding energy prices, drought and historic heatwaves… These are all “massive shocks” to English farmers. Andrew Blenkiron, potato and beet grower, is one of them. At the head of a 4,250-hectare estate, 130 km northeast of London, he testifies to his situation, which is increasingly less economically sustainable.
Starting with the electricity bill that you will have to pay this year. Its amount will quadruple to “370,000 pounds sterling” (438,000 euros), he says. A particularly salty note that is explained by the tripling of tariffs but also by the need to pump more water due to weather conditions. In the UK, temperatures are once again above 30°C.
With “the incredible heat and the extremely dry wind”, it was necessary to irrigate “probably twice” the potato fields, says Andrew Blenkiron, looking at one of the domain’s two giant tanks, with a capacity of 363 million liters. In this season its level should reach 5 meters out of a maximum of ten, but it is almost empty.
Only 10% of usual rainfall in July
The land in this part of Suffolk is very fertile, provided it receives enough nutrients and water. However, the region received only about 10% of the usual rainfall in July and less than 50% in three months.
The last exceptionally dry months in central and southern England have led to restrictions on water consumption in some areas and are a serious blow to fruit and vegetable growers, who see their production decimated.
The Euston farm irrigates the potatoes for which it is harvest season. In contrast, sugar beets stand on their own. Unearthed at random by Andrew Blenkiron, some, which should be the size of a handball, sport a skinny, stunted appearance.
performance cut in half
“We think that the yield will be cut in half”, says the manager, while waiting for the rains to return for the seasonal opening of the sugar factory, at the end of September, because “the beet can recover (from the dough) quite significantly .
On the other hand, it is already late for fodder corn, used in animal feed, which will mean “real difficulties this winter” for the operation of the farm’s methanization unit.
The oil shock has also caused the price of fertilizers to triple and the price of fuel for tractors and harvesters to double. Euston, owned for 350 years by the Dukes of Grafton, is forced to bear these increases alone, since the prices of the 2022 harvests are contractually fixed.
On the other hand, “if energy prices are at the same level next year, we will have to pass these costs on to our customers,” warns Andrew Blenkiron, when inflation is already at its highest level since the 1980s. if there isn’t enough rain this winter, “there are going to be very difficult decisions to make about how much we are going to plant.”
Source: BFM TV
